


Summer Nights

by EtuBrutus



Category: Cemetery Boys - Aiden Thomas
Genre: 1980s, Alchemy, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Gen, I am so hyped for this hop on the train fellas, M/M, Magical Realism, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Whole Gang's Here - Freeform, Yadriel leaves the brujx, it's not the alchemy you're thinking of, no beta we die like catriz, you'll see why - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:09:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29549112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtuBrutus/pseuds/EtuBrutus
Summary: "You're a quiet one, aren't you?"Yadriel says nothing. Doesn't point out the irony in the statement, or that the brujx were scared of him for a reason.featuring: a brujo on the run with a motorbike, the desert, and gay alchemists.
Relationships: Julian Diaz/Yadriel Vélez Flores
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Yadriel is quiet as he slips into the old family garage. The floor is dusty, because nobody ever cleans it, and nobody ever uses the vehicles. Why would they? The brujx don’t have any reason to leave Orleans. 

He supposes he isn’t much of a brujo, after all. It’s not like his family’s ever claimed he  _ was,  _ but he’d always tried to be. To fit in. The portajes that Maritza made for him say enough - they’re dusty, too.

He’d still tucked them into the sheathes at his belt. The garage lights are off, but a single-window metres above the ground lets in pale blue light, stretching in rectangles across the ground, which he avoids stepping on. 

Yadriel does not want to be seen. 

The cars - there are lots of them, at least six on either side - reach out to him. A few of them recognise him, and he hears hums along the lines of,  _ hey, kiddo,  _ and  _ fancy seeing one of ya’ll here,  _ all American make and all lazy engines, gas guzzlers. The similarities he finds between his old latino relatives and their vehicles are amusing, but he’s here for a reason, and he won’t risk stopping to chat. 

Yadriel sees, leaning against the far wall of the garage, what he’s looking for. 

A Harley Davidson, 1971 FX model, but still steady, with a stable suspension and working engine. One he remembers riding on, with strong, familiar,  _ safe  _ arms around him, a bright laugh that he hadn’t heard in years. 

Dad -  _ Enrique  _ hadn’t touched it since Diego left. Yadriel figures it was for the best, because the Davidson’s always been special, and it purrs at him fondly. 

He walks over to it, gets a leg over the seat, and feels the solidness of the handles under his hands. He’s more used to holding portajes, ignoring the call to drive (this is your  _ home,  _ mijo, you aren’t going to  _ leave,  _ get off the bike) but Yadriel knows immediately that he’s going to get the hang of it.

He’s not alone here, after all. The Davidson’s key disappeared when Diego did, but Yadriel’s never needed keys when it comes to vehicles. All it takes is a whispered, “Let’s go,” and the engine revs itself. He feels the duffel bag vibrate against his back.

The helmet, hanging off the back, slides over his face without trouble. When he pulls the visor down, he feels a thrill, because with his eyes covered, there’s no way to pin him as brujx. He looks like a stranger, like he’s from nowhere. 

There’s nothing keeping him here, now. He can leave the handful of buildings strewn around the cemetery in Orleans, here, where the brujx nest like ravens. There’s a compass in his bag, the essentials for survival, a good amount of cash, binders, clothes, food, water. (strictly speaking, he could use his voice to get anything he wanted from anywhere, but he’s not that much of an asshole.)

Yadriel knows his father is asleep. He knows the man will wake up at nine, and walk around dead-eyed, not talking to anyone but helping in whatever way Lita needs. And despite how useless the man is, how he’s  _ never  _ been there, there’s a moment where Yadriel considers staying. 

It would be easier. It might not be the best life - at times, it’s dangerous, but he knows how to exist here, and driving away is a barrel full of unknown variables he’d be throwing himself in.

It’s a moment of weakness, and fear, and the desire for the brujx to love him that Yadriel thought he’d squashed years ago.

Then the Davidson purrs against him, comforting, says  _ it’s okay _ . It’s almost like Diego, and then Maritza, both of whom are gone (who left) and were the only tethers to his family Yadriel had ever really had. 

He takes a breath, looks out at the desert roads behind the tiny cluster of buildings he’d grown up in. Tightens the sling of the duffel, and twists the Davidson’s handles. 

The air is cold through his clothes, but the lightness he feels as they glide past buildings, and eventually, over dusty roads, makes him laugh. 

The Davidson’s affection reaches for him, and though it hasn’t spoken a word for years and years, the wind whipping past them sounds a lot like its laughter. 

  
  
  


The first time he’d heard a car speak, it was on his way home from school. He’d been eight, everyone still thought he was a girl, and a passing Camaro had reached out to him, saying,  _ hey, how you doin,  _ the sound of a grizzly old man’s voice, warm. 

He’d stopped and stared, before the driver shooed him away with an annoyed flick of his hand. 

There weren’t many cars in Orleans, or, at least, where Yadriel lived. It was the seventies, and the train station was on the other end of town, but Tito worked in a garage, so Yadriel went there.

The man eyed him suspiciously (like all adults did) but let him sit around, as he worked on the engine of a Chevy Pickup. Yadriel knew what model it was because it told him so.  _ The other gear - no, that one’s fine, the other one, dios.  _ A pause, before it noticed him.  _ Hey, kid, mind telling the guy that it’s the spark plug electrode? He’s killing me here. _

Yadriel had said, “Tito, try the spark plug electrode.”

The man - short, only a few inches taller than Yadriel - had glared at him. It wasn’t unusual, but Yadriel stared back, because people normally backed off when he did that. The man grumbled, before changing his positioning, the Chevy sighing,  _ ah, yep, that’s great. Thanks, kid.  _

Yadriel had wanted to say,  _ no problem,  _ because it wouldn’t hear him if he didn’t say it, but Tito didn’t like him all that much, so he wandered off to the road and tried not to think about conversing with engines and metal.

  
  
  


He stops at a gas station ten miles out of the city. The small building on the side of the road is bright blue in the dusty night, not very welcoming, but a temporary respite. 

A few miles from the ‘Welcome to Orleans!’ sign, the roads had become mostly sand - there was still the outline of the tarmac, but the texture had been gritty. The Davidson had been delighted - it loved open roads, and told him,  _ do you feel it? Look, look, look, do you feel the air? _

Yadriel suspects the Davidson remembers Diego, but he can’t tell if it can differentiate between his brother and himself. Then again, vehicles had longer and more static memories than people did. Tito’s old Chevy had talked about the man’s  _ grandfather,  _ and the minivan Miguel had bought that one time had been brand new, had remembered nothing at all. 

Yadriel slides off the Davidson and leans it against the far wall. He keeps the helmet on, holds his duffel straps with calm hands, and walks inside. 

He has food, all his documentation with him (nobody could prove he existed with any paperwork.) Yadriel hadn’t thought much ahead of  _ run away,  _ when packing, and maybe  _ find Diego and Maritza,  _ so he’ll have to make a plan before the panic sets in. 

He isn’t alone, at least. He’s found that the Davidson, once it had begun talking, keeps up enough chatter to distract him from thinking too much. 

Yadriel walks to the magazine section, shaking off dust in the air conditioning, and mentally maps out where he is. Still in Louisiana, approaching Texas. Where should he go? He knows nothing about where his brother might be - Diego had just gotten up one day, and walked away. He can’t think about it too much without the edges getting fuzzy. (Figures. Camilla.)

Yadriel pushes thoughts of his brother to the back of his head. Maritza used to talk about running off to Los Angeles, but that’s not solid either, she’d talked about a lot of things over the years. 

Briefly, Yadriel contemplates Mexico. It’s a random, unbidden thought - he’s never  _ been  _ there, even though his father’s family had come from the place. The brujx were exclusive to Orleans - Yadriel didn’t even know if his grandparents would even  _ know  _ about them. Or even alchemy, at all. 

The rack of magazines is tinted orange through his visor, the helmet providing him precious anonymity. He has necessities already, everything except a place to go. Sure, the Davidson could drive wherever it wanted if Yadriel let it, but that wasn’t a lasting plan. 

Especially if anyone came looking for him. Yadriel’s spine goes rigid at the thought. He pushes it away - not the time.

He doesn’t need a  _ destination,  _ really; just a direction. ‘Away from Orleans’ eventually extends into a compass of options, and Yadriel’s overwhelmed. He’s never had this much… choice before. This many options. He can go  _ anywhere.  _

Tinny music plays from the overhead speakers. Nobody else is in the station, except the cashier, who’s absorbed in a magazine, walkman over their ears. At the end of the rack, a crumpled, folded sheet sticks out. 

He reaches to smooth it out, and catches the title - ‘a tourist’s guide to the southwest!’ A map. One of those cheap, free brochures. Yadriel casts a glance to the cashier before tucking it into his duffel. 

The paper’s edge gives his hand a papercut. Yadriel doesn’t wince - he’s still technically  _ brujx,  _ it’ll heal soon enough - but he picks up a pair of biking gloves on the way to checkout anyway. 

“That’s three-fifty.”

He hands over a five-dollar bill, aware of the security alarms the station probably has. He won’t use his voice here - no point, no need, he wasn’t an asshole like that. He could pay for some gloves.

“Here’s the receipt.”

“Thanks,” he says, sliding the gloves on, and trashing the reciept as soon as the doors close behind him. The Davidson purrs when it sees him again - there’s an edge to it, like it’d been afraid he wouldn’t come back, but Yadriel lays a gloved hand on the handle. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “We’re in this together.”

The bike’s presence aside, Yadriel flips up the visor, and reaches for the map. The light from the shop windows is bright enough to illuminate the tiny paper paths, paper smooth against his skin - and the Louisiana border, in red. Yadriel scans the paper for the gas station symbol, ignoring the speck that had been Belvedere Road, Orleans. 

There are a few ways to travel from here. His eyes go to the single road, with an expanse of yellow on all sides. Tucsony route, leading into Texas, skirting the southern border with Mexico, but still surrounded by desert. 

He’s heard of it, from uncles lamenting the lack of activity on Tucsony. Vehicles beaten up by sandstorms, whining about a lack of radio signal or gas on the way, being fixed up in the garage. Back when Tito was still alive, and Yadriel hung around the cars whenever he could. 

Yadriel traces the line with his finger, thinking of how it could help obscure his presence. He’d be an anonymous biker, on a long road. It wouldn’t be dangerous for him, as long as he could talk. His voice was his weapon, and he had his portajes as well. They were in his belt. He wasn’t planning on storing them in the duffel, out here. 

Sliding the visor back on, he asks the Davidson, “What do you think of Texas?”

  
  
  
  


He hadn’t known how to drive a car. He’d wanted to, but it was always too risky, and would never be worth the consequences. Even when Andre had hotwired one and taken it for a joyride, Lita had slapped him upside the head with her shoe, labelling anything like it a crime for the brujx.

“We don’t run away,” she’d spat, disgusted. “Your home is here. You  _ stay  _ here.”

“Tito runs a garage,” Andre had muttered, mutinously, voice bitter and vile. 

“That is for money. Do you see him driving anywhere? No. You leave, and you don’t come back _.  _ Understood?”

She’d hit him a few more times, Lita, with her dark eyes and throaty voice, and Enrique had said nothing. Andre had almost whimpered, nose bloody, but hadn’t tried driving again. Lita’s words were law. After that, nobody had even tried. 

Diego had the Davidson, a sprightly, friendly thing, but at the time he’d put a hand on Yadriel’s shoulder.  _ Don’t say anything,  _ was the silent message. Of course he wouldn’t. Yadriel never said anything, unless he needed to. 

He still itched to drive, to press down on an accelerator, and hear the car’s whoops of laughter as they raced down the road, but Orleans was not a place of movement, of speed, it couldn’t be with the syrupy stagnancy covering every part of the cemetery. The dead wouldn’t leave, for the brujx - things would remain the same for decades and decades. And anyway, the cars in the brujx garage had long since given up on driving.

He still spoke to them on the street, though.

  
  
  
  


Yadriel hadn’t thought to sleep as he’d driven the Davidson further away from Orleans. Before he long, the deep blue of the sky shifts into a light dusk grey, gradually lightening with the sunrise. 

It chides him when his muscles began aching. _Rest, you don’t run on gas, the road will still be here later,_ the Davidson says. Yadriel doesn’t _want_ to rest, partially because he’s never slept anywhere except the cemetery, and also because it’s the _desert_.

He pulls over, anyway. Checks the speedometer to see how far they gone - it didn’t matter much, since the map lacks markers for any stops on the road, but there had to be, since nobody would get through it if there weren’t.

Yadriel marks their place, pulls off the helmet and tows the Davidson over to a small cluster of shrubs and trees. He hides it behind a crop of bushes - it  _ refuses  _ to be laid horizontally - and drinks a quart of water before laying down on the packed sand. After a while, he puts the duffel under his head, like a pillow. 

Yadriel drifts off to the sky turning orange. 

  
  
  
  


The next time Yadriel runs into anyone is at a cluster of small shack-like buildings, deep into the desert. He’d stopped there to refill gas - the Davidson couldn’t run on willpower alone - and thought he’d lucked out in finding a tiny pit stop. 

A young boy and girl are running the garage - siblings, twins maybe. They look at him with cautious eyes, and it relieves Yadriel to know they only see his visor. 

“I need some gas,” he says in spanish, gesturing to the Davidson’s tank, still straddling the seat, one leg on the ground. 

The boy crosses his arms. “We don’t have any.”

Right. “How much are you guys charging?”

“Twenty dollars for two litres,” the girl says, shoving her brother. 

“I’m not an idiot - ten for two.”

“No deal,” the boy says, stubbornly. Yadriel turns his helmet to the girl, shrugging. “There don’t seem to be many customers,” he says. The ‘I can just leave’ goes unspoken, but heard.

“Fine,” the girl scowls, lugging the container over. 

Yadriel doesn’t want to be a douche to some random kids, but he’s not got enough cash to spend whenever he wants. It’s gas. It’s just gas. He isn’t going to use his voice for this. He won’t screw over a few kids, manning a gas station with no adults, surrounded by sand. 

Once the tank’s full, the Davidson let’s put a contented hum, like,  _ that was good let’s go let’s go let’s go _ , always itching to move. 

“Pay up,” she says. The boy’s standing in front of the bike, like he thinks Yadriel is going to drive off. It’s a smart thing to do. 

He hands over the note. They take it, and he sees them walking back inside as he passes the ramshackle surroundings. 

When he stops at a red light, which, for some reason, exists, the murmurs of the vehicles becomes a constant hum around them. They’re all old, but strong and robust, in their make and the way they talk. 

_ Gangs everywhere now, motorbikes and crowbars -  _

_ \- goddamn colombians, coming up from texas, immigrant shit -  _

_ Anyone on a motorbike out here is an idiota, fool, either part of some dealing-job, or a pyramid scheme -  _

He doesn’t linger, once the lights turn green. The Davidson scoffs at the scorn of the vehicles, purring protectively around him. Yadriel isn’t too worried - the chances of someone thinking he’s part of a gang aren’t… negligible, he supposes. He’s alone, wearing a tinted visor, on a motorbike, but as long as he can speak, he’s not in danger of anyone harming him badly. 

The dusty road stretches out past the last building in the shacked-up town, and Yadriel isn’t sad to see it go. He’s already left the one place he might have had an attachment to - never actually learnt to hold onto something in the first place.

His jeans stick to his skin, and his jacket’s got a good layer of dust on the surface, but the silence of the enveloping sands and desert drowns everything else out, and he and the Davidson drive for miles and miles and miles. 

  
  


Once he stops for the night, again, at a sparser clump of greenery, sky purple and starlit, his stomach is ravenous and his throat is parched. The Davidson doesn’t urge him to eat, like relatives are supposed to - it’s not  _ human -  _ but it does tell him that they should  _ stop driving, soon, it’s getting dark, my headlight isn’t that bright. _ Yadriel listens. 

As he slides off the seat, stretching out his limbs, he wonders how the Davidson is a little… more, than other vehicles. It thinks of people, doesn’t just prattle on about things it’s heard, its own upholstery. It worries, not like a human, but enough like a person that Yadriel can’t help answering it when it talks. 

“You okay with that bush?”

_ Fine,  _ it says, resigned.  _ Sand always gets in when we’re stationary. _

“Hey, you were the one who wanted to stop.”

He rummages for some food and water, and gets ready to pass out near the bushes, far enough from the road to be safe.

It makes a creaking sound, like a human would sigh.  _ Silly boy,  _ it says.  _ Whenever Diego drove around, we’d come back to the stagnant place at night. _

His name is a pause, a reminder. 

“The cemetery,” Yadriel replies, quiet.

_ Yes. Where we left from.  _ A pause.  _ Diego always used to come back. I miss him. _

“Me too.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


The first time he'd seen a car go up in flames, Yadriel had thrown up.

He didn’t think of cars as people. Not really, not in the ‘conscious-and-deserve-rights’ way. They talked to  _ him,  _ sure, but they didn’t  _ talk,  _ and maybe if he’d been able to drive, it would have been different, but they weren’t alive, not to most people.

He’d seen people die. He was brujx, of course he had. People died all the time, and brujos released their souls, and if there was still life in them then brujas brought them back. But the sound the Toyota made - a cute blue thing - as its metal frame screeched and tore, was a scream, the sound of a drawn out, excruciating death by being burned alive. 

It hadn’t called to him for help. There wouldn’t be a point - a car was only a car so long as it could drive, and as the chassis falls through, the Toyota would be lucky to be in a single piece at all.

But there’d been only one garage that side of town, and it was midday, and the guy driving had gotten out alright, so the people of Orleans let the Toyota’s corpse be, let it burn, and people gave Yadriel odd looks for throwing up on the sidewalk. Eventually, he walked away. 

He didn’t forget, though. It’d been hard, from then on, hearing them die. Chassis metal and drying lungs sound almost the same.

He wakes up earlier than he would, the next day to the sound of voices, a distance away.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up earlier than he would, to the sound of voices, a distance away. The sky isn’t too bright, and when Yadriel opens his eyes, he sees it’s a group of people, clustered a few dozen yards to his left. It’s a comfort that they can’t see him clearly from that distance. 

The group’s voices are loud, raspy and rough, a few younger men in the mix. There are a few girls, too, sharp laughs and all of them radiating danger. He sees around six motorbikes, ugly, robust things, scary-looking, who growl indiscriminately, _diesel, asphalt, burn them up, come on, get closer to the edge,_ and the similarities between vehicles and drivers makes him roll his eyes. 

The Davidson hums, _They’re stronger than me._

“I know,” Yadriel murmurs, watching them mount their bikes and blow up dust on their way. Once they’re a distance away, small on the horizon, he gets up, shakes out his jacket. The jeans will have to wait. He can’t waste water on washing himself, so it’s just a few seconds before he’s ready to go.

“Let’s avoid trouble,” he says casually, swinging a leg over the seat. 

_Whatever you say,_ is the Davidson’s response, smug and not remotely worried. Yadriel debates the sentience of cars, before revving the engine and pushing onto the road.

  
  
  


He doesn’t mean to get involved. He really doesn’t. Hell, he knows nothing good is in it for him. But. 

_Diego wouldn’t do this, ever,_ the Davidson sighs. _You’re being irrational. This is foolish._

“Yeah, I know,” Yadriel breathes, as he pushes the visor up, keeping the helmet on. The packed sand is solid when he slides off the seat.

There’s a man and woman, with their hands up, and the gang from before surrounding them - punks, his mind supplies - like eager wolf pups, laughing, sharp teeth, their bikes parked outside the motel. One of them is circling the building on his bike, revving the engine, again and again, to shake up the two even more. The old man is at knifepoint, the knife held by a shockingly handsome punk (he’s not old, doesn’t look like he’s drinking age, but with a knife in his hand he ceases to be a boy.) 

There’s the hungry cadence of their voices and the looks in their eyes that spells out _danger_ for everybody to see.

The old man’s holding keys, hands shaking, above his head. “Please,” he says, inching backward, “Please leave. We don’t want trouble.”

They laugh, shoving each other like, _get a load of this guy_. 

Yadriel walks over, making sure to be loud with his boots on the dusty asphalt. “Hey,” he calls, can feel the attention swerving to him. They’re pissed, now, but their eyes are uncertain. Yadriel holds himself relaxed and calm, like he always had with his family, before. The practice comes to good use. “What’s happening here?”

“Fuck off, brat,” says one of the women, eyes narrow, making the rest of them relax, like swearing at the problem will make it go away. The old man’s still shaking, eyes closed, looking resigned. 

Yadriel loosens his shoulders, exhales. This won’t be difficult. It has never been difficult. “Step away from them.”

And just like that, the group stiffens, strings taut, Yadriel holding the lines above their heads. They take a synchronised step back, eyes darting around confusedly, and then, scared.

There are whispers of, _what the fuck,_ and _Jesus Christ,_ and a variety of expletives that lose their meaning when you say them with fear.

“Turn around,” Yadriel says, feeling the warmth behind his eyes grow, keeping them in his view, because it’s always stronger that way, “and get on your bikes.”

They do get on their bikes. 

He walks up to the handsome one, the one with the knife (sloppy technique, he thinks, brujx toddlers would be better at holding a weapon) and looks him in the eye. “You’re going to drive away, back where you came from, until you run out of gas. You’re going to forget ever coming here. You will forget about me.”

The guy’s eyes are wide, scared and confused (Yadriel hates people looking at him like that, like he’s just going to hurt them indiscriminately) but then they go glassy, like his memories of the event are already fading. 

Because Yadriel wills it, the same happens to the rest of them.

Mechanically, safely, cohesively, they drive away. The growling motorbikes are annoyed, whining for danger and close calls, which won’t happen with their driver’s complacent like this. Yadriel isn’t sorry to see them go.

When he turns around, the old man and woman are staring at him in shock. He figures his eyes are still glowing golden, and sighs. They can’t know, obviously. Time to do this again.

He puts meaning behind his voice, but keeps it gentle. “You will both forget about what I’ve just done, and will not remember I was here when they left. They left, and I wasn’t here, alright?”

They nod, eyes going glassy for an instant, and once Yadriel is sure the damage has been controlled, he flips his visor back down, walks outside to the Davidson, and leans against its frame. 

It usually takes five minutes to take effect. After the time passes, he walks back into the building. It’s an old motel, though the sign reads, _Inn,_ and when he walks back in, the old man is at the reception desk, looking rattled, though there’s no recognition when he sees Yadriel. 

There’s a healthy degree of suspicion when he sees the helmet, duffel bag, and leather jacket. “Can I help you?”

Yadriel affects an air of ease, puts the duffel on the ground, and sweeps off his helmet. He smiles, friendly and false and does not use his voice. “Hello, yes, could I rent a room?”

  
  
  


Orleans had been a small town, where everyone knew everyone. Still, the brujx kept to themselves more than the others - they were immigrants, had come over a while ago, all legal. But they kept to themselves.

The ‘cemetery’ they used was really just a small patch of land to the western part of the area, but for their families, it connoted the cluster of buildings around it. The garage that nobody used, and the chicken coop that was for eggs as much as it was for blood.

Yadriel figured that the brujx wanted to kill him when he was around thirteen.

You need to know, death for the brujx was different than it was for other people. It was permanent, but not lonely - there was promise of another life, and the chance to visit the beloved once a year.

Dying was different than being killed. Yadriel had seen people die - the opposite wasn’t something he could quantify, and so the revelation didn’t rattle him as much as it should have.

It was in the way that people whispered, _Camila,_ and _their mother, just like her,_ and the sidelong glances. Enrique hadn’t said anything - hadn’t _endorsed_ the things people said, but made sure Yadriel knew he was different.

(Not ‘I’m not a girl,’ different - that had been a given, for as long as Yadriel had been old enough to think. It was more of, your cousins and aunts and uncles are the brujx, and then there’s you.)

There were looks, some of pity and others of disgust, aimed at him. All like he was a writhing animal that had to be put down. Killing him would be a mercy, their eyes said. He’s sick, he can do things brujx aren’t meant to do. 

It hadn’t really set in until one day, in the field that doubled as a playground, André had glared at him from metres away. Other boys had converged around him, whispering among themselves, but Andre never took his eyes off Yadriel. He’d stared and stared, like a puma waiting out prey, and Yadriel hadn’t moved from his place by the rocks, because sensing danger was a universal trait for brujx. 

After a while, the boys had begun stalking toward him. Step by step. Yadriel stared back, a spike of fear in his chest. Andre led them, taller and older.

When they were three metres away, Yadriel had said, “Back off.”

The group flinched when he spoke. Andre did as well, expression morphing immediately to fury. (At himself, or at Yadriel, it was unclear.)

By now, everyone knew what he could do. Yadriel couldn’t control it well, and so he barely spoke, but the stories about his voice were enough to rattle them. 

The other boys dispersed, soon enough. Andre hadn’t - he’d walked away, back to where he’d been, still staring dead-eyed. Yadriel was pretty sure he’d whispered _freak,_ and _changeling,_ as well as other things, but it hadn’t mattered, because that was the moment Yadriel had left the playground.

Their fear didn’t ensure his safety. And so he’d walked away, immediately.

  
  


The first time Yadriel sees the kid, he’s having an argument with a man running a garage in one of the unmarked towns. The kid - he _is_ a kid, barely a teen - has poodle-hair, and if not the heat-induced frizziness, would probably look like sheep hair. The two are speaking in English, which either means the kid doesn’t know Spanish (poor guy) or they don’t want to cause a scene.

Yadriel has his helmet on, visor down, a figure in black between service-stop buildings. The kid’s saying, “We need the parts, we _made_ a deal -”

“Deal’s fucking off, tell your retard brothers -”

“Don’t _call_ them -,” the kid cuts himself off, clenching his fist. He steps back immediately, and a few deep breaths later, looks at the man. 

In a voice that could only have been honed through practice, he says, “If you don’t stick to your end, I’ll have to come back with the others.”

The man folds his arms, but looks away. “These rotors are fucking _expensive_ , vato, they’re worth more on the market, how do I know you’re not off selling them underhand, eh?”

“We’re not, there’s no reason we would.” After a brief staring match, the kid says, “We appreciate this, Jorgé, really.”

Another tense moment passes, before the man massages his temple, anger apparently dissipated. He walks into the ‘back’ of his shop - just the boxes behind him - and mutters something like, ‘freak show, putting me out of business,’ before dumping a sack on the table, hands flat on its surface. 

“Listen. I see any of these on the market? I’m fucking calling the cops. You think we don’t know y’all are illegal? If I call them up, I’m betting they won’t find passports, eh? So you tell the others to stay the fuck out of my way.”

The kid glares back, and the air around him wavers with heat, from where Yadriel is standing. It’s got to be a mirage, maybe from engine exhaust heat, because air doesn’t _do_ that unless it’s around a bonfire. But it’s early morning, and the desert route has been windy for the past day.

Yadriel pays attention, now. To how the kid’s hair covers his eyes, the way he clenches his fists at his side. How he’s holding himself stiff, like a dam holding back pressure from a reservoir.

The buildings hide him anyway, but Yadriel still leans back against the wall, so it doesn’t look like he’s watching. (The many benefits of wearing a motorbike helmet, he’s found.) The kid nods eventually, takes the bag, and walks away, leaving Yadriel’s field of vision. 

It’s none of his business. The Davidson’s tank is full, and he’s aware of their location on the map, he’s a few hundred miles off the border, but he’s… curious.

The only people passing through these towns are the odd gang, and a few travellers. The locals keep to themselves, but it’s obvious that the kid isn’t a local. 

Is he part of a gang? It doesn’t matter, because Yadriel’s not staying here, but he looks a little too… young? Not like he _knows_ , but definitely not _gang_ material, especially if they’re smuggling supplies through the desert.

Yadriel holds the Davidson by its handles, pulling it around the building, to get back to the road. _Not many other cars or bikes,_ it says absently. Then, slightly delighted, _oh, look._

The kid from before climbs into a red car, and Yadriel only realises it’s _running_ because he hears its voice humming, quietly. _Home, home, home, Rio, Jules,_ almost like a song.

The guy at the wheel - dark, with tightly cropped hair, he looks mixed - musses up the kid’s hair, before hitting the gas and leaving a trail of dust in wake. Normally, Yadriel can tell the make of a car immediately, but this one doesn’t boast its brand, doesn’t jump to talk about its stats. It’d noticed him, though. Even though he’d felt it for a few minutes, it hadn’t acted how cars usually did. He’s never seen anything like it before. 

Yadriel figures he probably won’t see anything like it again. The Davidson whirrs impatiently, and he pats its headlight, hiking a foot onto the stand. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

They follow the map south, like planned, intentionally ignoring the tracks of the car. The tracks that trail off the road, through the desert.

  
  
  


The first time Yadriel used his voice, it had been by accident. He hadn’t known he _could,_ and so couldn’t stop himself from letting power and intent seep into the words.

It was one of his cousins, Jaime, who’d been nagging him relentlessly, _why are you dressing like that,_ calling him a tomboy and pulling at his long hair. They’d been ten, or eleven, the young age when differences begin mattering to children. None of the adults had been around, and Yadriel was annoyed, and upset, and so he’d told him to _‘Shut up.’_ His eyes had felt warm, but that was it.

Jaime had walked away. Later, he was told that Jaime had sat crying for four hours, because he hadn’t been able to open his mouth at all.

The adults hadn’t come to admonish him. Nobody came near him, in fact, though Yadriel heard whispers of _diabla_ and _just like his mother,_ and he’d been wondering where his mom was, because Dad had been the one to herd him back home. Dad had looked incredibly sad. 

His cousins began avoiding him, after that. Their parents whispering things to them, looking at him with thinly veiled suspicion. The brujas would lean away from him while holding their rosaries, like they didn’t want to be praying for him but didn’t know what else to do.

He doesn’t remember where his mother was, then. (He does, but if he thinks of it, Yadriel will forget.)

And maybe Diego had been there. Yes, Yadriel was sure Diego had been there, but the memories blur at the edges.

Maritza hadn’t cared at all. She’d walked around with him, rambling on about the spiderman comics and weird songs on the radio that teenagers thought were cool. She’d say, _I’m going to be an engineer,_ even though everyone knew that brujas weren’t anything but healers. (although, mom hadn’t been a bruja -) Everyone knew that.

But Yadriel had been sure Maritza would do it. Like, even though he was the one with an alchemic voice, the things she said would be spoken into reality.

They’d laughed, and Maritza would show him her secret, making coins fly across the room, and melt together, until they looked like chewing gum. She’d do that, and then separate the coins, looking the exact same as before. 

They’d bought a spiderman toy, once. Yadriel had asked her to make tiny portajes for the thing, and she’d turned loose change from Tia Sofia’s purse into shiny little daggers. 

Maritza had been like a magnet, a magpie, cheerful and charming enough that people felt comfortable enough around her. (She’d get their watch to slip off their hand while grinning.)

Yadriel misses her like a phantom limb.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXPOSITION BABEYYYY
> 
> Look! Ensemble characters! Will they be important later on? hell fucking yeah, obviously, this train is on the tracks and I am dying to show the things in store.
> 
> I'm aware this is very, very AU - if you haven't picked up on it already, this takes place in 1980s America, and since I'm not American, all of the geography is surface level research. But this is before technology and the internet, you know this already.
> 
> The brujx being assholes? sue me, it's fiction. there are good brujx too (you'll see them later) but for now our boi yads is on the run and trying (and failing) to keep to himself. 
> 
> Keep an eye out for the next chapter!
> 
> \- EtuBrutus

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to post this for AGES. And, yeah, I'm aware that I've got a bunch of WIPs, but this is definitely one of my favourite Cemetery Boys AU so far. Subscribe to this fic, because I know you all are here for the pining and angst, and man is this going to deliver.
> 
> There'll be more context for a bunch of the stuff in this chapter later on. And don't worry, we see the train gang soon enough.
> 
> Note: I am not a historian, nor am I American, nor am I latinx. If there's anything you want to point out about inaccuracies, please do so! I want to make this as authentic as possible (but, then again, it's magical realism fiction, so.)
> 
> As always, comment, kudos, and check out my other work. (my cemetery boys obsession is far from over.)
> 
> \- EtuBrutus


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